


You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Sense of Proportion

by soleta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-15
Updated: 2005-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soleta/pseuds/soleta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three years since the battle in the Department of Mysteries, and Remus is just beginning to put the war behind him - again - when he catches sight of a familiar back in the crowd. <strike>hijinks ensue.</strike></p>
            </blockquote>





	You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Sense of Proportion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cathybites](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=cathybites).



> Eleanor Catchlove requested: _I want Sirius back from wherever he went when he fell through the veil. I want him to show up on Remus's doorstep out of the blue one day. I want Remus there to help him put the pieces of his life back together (so probably this would be best be set after Voldemort has been defeated again and all that). I'd like it if they'd never been involved together before, but maybe there were always feelings. And a slightly dark fic is more than okay with me as long as they end up happy together._

Remus can feel his jar of tomatoes soaking in to the leg of his trousers, as if at the far side of some great divide. He has no inclination to actually do something about it, except curse, in some far-off corner of his mind, about what the cleaners were going to charge him to get the stain out. The rest of his groceries were scattered in front of him, and he couldn't have given less of a damn about them when he could be staring at the so-familiar figure several paces in front of him.

Remus can't take his eyes off him.

He can't say how he knows. All the little details he used to know so well- the style of his clothing, the cut of his hair, even the way he walks is unfamiliar; but it's there, the instinctual knowledge he's learned to trust over the years. He just _knows_. It never crosses his mind to doubt as he moves forward, and takes the man's arm, and turns him around.

Sirius knows, too. It's practically written in his eyes, in his face, and Remus has no need to ask.

"Sirius." It's not a question.

Remus is taken by the arm and Sirius uses it as a leash, dragging him out of the crowd and down the street. The silence is crawling with unasked questions and Remus has never wished for the mystical powers legend imbues the wolf with more than he does in this moment. He could use a hint, if only to tell him what to say, exactly what to ask. He knows that this man is Sirius, but beyond that, this man could be a stranger.

They stop, and Remus jerks his arm away and opens his mouth before he realizes where they are. All his questions could wait five minutes, until they get into his flat, and just how Sirius knew where it was goes straight on the list of questions as Remus unlocks the front door and steps aside to let Sirius into the foyer. The lift ride is the silence of strangers trapped in an enclosed space; they both stare at their reflections in the sheen of the door.

It's so quiet, and Remus wants to let his tongue go, but he's waited three and a half years, five and a half, maybe close to nineteen years to ask some of the things in his head, and two more minutes won't kill him.

But it seems like he can almost live those nineteen years over again in the time it takes to get inside his flat, and the door isn't even closed all the way before he turns to Sirius and opens his mouth again. For a minute, he's lost in the changes between this version of his friend and the one he knew last; it's almost a struggle to even compare him to the ghost that haunted Grimmauld Place three and a half years ago. Sirius' hair is cut ruthlessly to his scalp and the hollows that marred his face have mostly disappeared. This new Sirius is pale in a way Azkaban had never managed. Only the eyes are the same, and the emotion buried in them - guilt, and a muted apology, so familiar; Remus could count on the fingers of one hand the times Sirius _hadn't_ owed him an apology for something or other. Remus doesn't recognize his own voice when it came; only realizes he's speaking from the weary flinch in Sirius' eyes. "How long?" _How long have you lied to me? How many years should I add to the tally?_

Remus doesn't have to elaborate.

"Two and a half years," Sirius answers, and the voice is one Remus can connect with the year post-Azkaban, low and rough, unused to the patterns of human speech. It subtly stresses the wrong syllables. And it takes something that familiar to drive home to Remus that he doesn't know the man in front of him, in a suit Sirius wouldn't have been caught dead in three years ago. More has changed than Sirius' fashion sense, and maybe if he keeps noticing it, the differences will actually register and Remus will stop feeling everything he shouldn't.

"Would you ever have - " Remus hopes that he's the only one who can hear the desperate appeal in his voice, but the look in Sirius' eyes suggests otherwise. _Would you ever have told me, if I hadn't found you?_

He should be used to pity, Remus thinks distantly, after thirty-five years of it. He's not. It still grates against the cage of his pride.

And Sirius is shaking his head, slowly, like it's the last thing he wants to do, but the last constant in Remus' life has just shattered on the edge of truth and pity. He's pulling out his wand in infinite slow motion, and Remus has no idea if he means to cast _Obliviate_ or _Avada Kedavra_ , or on whom. It would be enough to just stop the pity diffusing into the air of his flat ( _Crucio_ ,) or to shield himself from the blows of his past ( _Protego_ ,) or to run and start looking for a place that would let him live out the rest of his life without these sorts of betrayals happening like clockwork ( _Apparo_ ,) but Sirius' wand is already out of his sleeve and his options are cut in half, then wiped out of existence when the door to his flat opens without warning.

It's Hermione. Remus had keyed the door to the Trio when he had moved in three months ago, and it was only now that he was regretting his decision, but Hermione had always been a bright girl, and she's already backing out the door with a murmured "I'll just come back later, shall I?"

It's only after the door closes that Remus realizes Hermione never would have walked out if she'd recognized Sirius at all. There's more going on here than meets the eye, more than the death of his last friendship, and he swallows and slides his wand back into the hidden sheath in his sleeve. He smiles wearily, stomping his betrayed feelings back into their box in his mind, and moves to lock the door before he turns back to the wary figure standing in his parlour. "Tea?"

-

Sirius declines sugar, milk, lemon, biscuits, and scones with growing amusement before taking his tea into Remus' cramped library, examining the books on the shelves and floor and simple chairs with care.

Remus drinks his tea with lemon and the sharp edge of sour rolls over his tongue until he drops into the chair by the small desk and lets the saucer clatter on the surface. "You owe me an explanation, at the least."

Sirius is quiet, so quiet that Remus can hear humming in his ears when he tries to listen to Sirius' footsteps as he paces around the room. He's almost scrutinizing the books that are piled over and around and under every possible surface, examining each title closely, pulling one or two out of the shelves to look at the contents. Belatedly, he glances at Remus and nods assent. Remus is getting the impression that this Sirius doesn't talk very much. He would approve- maybe he can get a word in edgewise now- but the silence is denying him the answers he's looking for, the reasons, and without them he's afraid he might do something he wouldn't regret at all. "Sirius?" he asks. "Are you going to tell me anything, or are you going to judge the contents of my library?"

Sirius shoots him a look, amused and slightly impatient. Remus sighs and sits back in the comfortable chair, the one thing he'd actually spent money on in the flat, and raised his teacup to his lips. He was at Sirius' mercy yet again, and just as before, it chafed at the edges of his patience.

Finally, finally, Sirius pulls a book out of the bottom of a stack near the door and makes a soft sound of discovery. He opens it and drops it on the desk in front of Remus, who leans forward and scans the page. He knows the book, of course- it's his. He starts to read the title aloud. "Tar-"

Sirius' hand comes out of nowhere and covers his mouth. "No," he says softly. "Don't say his name."

Remus glares at him until he removes his hand, then picks up the book and reads to himself.

 _Taranis, the thunder god of the Gauls._

"Sirius," Remus says slowly, "What does this have to do with anything?"

Sirius sits on the edge of the desk and watches Remus closely. "When I fell through the Veil, I was stunned," he says, and his voice is flat with an effort Remus can almost hear. "I woke up in a sort of field, or something that looked like it might have been a field at one point. There were fences and the like in the corner I woke up in. The other edge was out of sight, it was that big. I got up and started walking along the fence, looking for something, anything; maybe other people, hiding where I couldn't see. But the ground, it crunched strangely under my feet, and when I brushed off the layer of dirt I realized it wasn't actually dirt. It was ash. Under it..." Sirius pauses and it's only then Remus realizes that Sirius is sweating. He frowns, and says quietly, "Under it, there were bones. Bones layered so deep I couldn't find the bottom when I tried. They were his victims, his acolytes, his martyrs. His believers."

Remus leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palm. He's still not convinced that this isn't a particularly imaginative fantasy, but at this point he's willing to be persuaded. Something about Sirius' sweating face is appealing to him. "Whose, Sirius? Whose believers?"

"His, of course." Sirius motions at the book, laid out to the page on Gallic gods. There's no engravings in that edition, and Remus makes a mental note to see if he can find a later copy. "He took me, when I fell, and kept me until I woke. And then he spoke to me."

Remus is tempted to tell Sirius that it's all right, that he doesn't have to go on if he doesn't want to; but then Sirius might actually take him at his word, and Remus is so close to real answers now that his brain is threatening to explode.

Sirius shifts, folds his arms across his chest, and tilts his head. "Do you remember when Dumbledore set you to researching what Voldemort was using? The spells, the rituals; he was trying to lay out more concrete defenses, I think, but you didn't find too much, if I remember correctly." Remus remembers all too well. That time of his life was marked with frustration and panic and long, sleepless nights with the books that had never before failed him. His brow furrowed, he nods slowly; Sirius shifts his stance, edging a little closer on the edge of the desk. "It wasn't your fault, Moony. What you were looking for isn't in books anymore."

Remus opens his mouth, closes it again when he realizes that nothing he has to say makes any sense. He grasps at the obvious question and asks it. "Sirius, what are you on about?" Sirius frowns impatiently and opens his mouth and Remus cuts him off. "Just tell me. I don't need the dramatic version."

"Voldemort made a deal with him," Sirius says quietly after a moment, nodding his head in the direction of the book. "Voldemort got power, enough to do anything he wanted, and in return, Voldemort was supposed to kill people."

Remus holds up a hand and says, "Wait a minute. Voldemort _did_ kill people. Quite a lot of people."

"But not the right way. You see, the Gauls worshipped _three_ of these gods; there was a brother and sister in the mix. Sacrifices to those three required the threefold death; poison, garroting, and drowning. There was quite a ritual to follow, as I understand it; done properly, it gives those three massive amounts of power. And Voldemort never bothered."

"So he broke the agreement."

"Precisely," Sirius agrees, reaching forward to pull a book off the shelf. "You still have this?"

Remus checks, sees that Sirius has pulled out Ovid's Metamorphoses. He takes the book from Sirius and smoothes a hand down the cover, then opens to the title page. "It was a gift from Dumbledore, the last thing he gave me. I wouldn't part with this for the world." He closes the book with a snap. "But that has nothing to do with your story," he says, aiming a stern look at Sirius, learned from his year of teaching.

It earns him a grin. "He couldn't do anything personally," Sirius says. "He's too weak. He requires- an agent. Which was where I came in, apparently. I was the first person to go through the Veil for years - I don't think anyone at the Ministry actually knows what it does.

"When he touched me, it was like every nightmare you've ever had. This awful, brooding presence."

Sirius stops, and says slowly, "And he told me that he could send me back, back here, to this world, if I would only do what he wanted. If I would kill Voldemort, or see that he was killed, with the threefold death. Anyone else I could kill that way, he said, was just a bonus."

"Sirius," Remus says slowly, horror growing. "Sirius. You didn't."

"What else was I supposed to do?" Sirius asks, an edge to his voice. He pushes off the desk and starts to pace. "Don't get me wrong, Moony. I've never killed anyone that way. I'm not entirely stupid. He returned me, just as he said, and I swore to myself I wouldn't get involved. But..." He slows, and turns back to Remus. "But you weren't doing so well at the time; all the reports had the Order in hiding, decimated. I couldn't just stand around with my thumb up my arse and let you lot muck everything up."

His eyes are begging for forgiveness. Remus isn't sure what the forgiveness is for, or whether he's inclined to give it just yet.

"So what exactly did you do?" Remus asks before he thinks, and once he does start thinking, his eyes widen. "You! You were our bloody mystery sniper!"

Sirius sighs, says softly, "I couldn't let you fight it alone."

Remus goes back in his mind to the memories he had tried so hard to forget. "Mulciber." Sirius nods. "The retreat at Brecon Beacons. Narcissa Malfoy." Remus looks down at his hands. He doesn't want to see this replayed in Sirius' eyes. It was hard enough to see what was left after. "You're the one who finally found little Peter. Aren't you." There have been quite a few questions-that-aren't tonight, facts that leave no room for doubt. It's not that he's so certain of everything, Remus thinks; it's that easy way Sirius has always had, the one which makes him realize that he doesn't always want an answer, and so makes the question superfluous. Sirius, standing there with his hands in his pockets and hair cut so short that supernatural influence isn't needed for it to stand on end, his head ever so slightly cocked, is urging him to accept all of this at face value. _This is my explanation_ , Sirius says silently, _now can't we all move on?_

Except there are weak spots in this story, holes, and Remus can no more leave a weak spot alone than resist the moon when it calls his body inside-out.

Nineteen years and two wars have given him powers that seven years with James and Sirius never did, though, and he easily keeps a straight face as he asks, "Why didn't Hermione recognize you just now?"

It's only because Remus is watching for it that he notices the line of Sirius' body relax. "The house I'm living in now, it came with a house-elf. He's kept a glamour on me since the day I bought the house." Sirius grimaced. "He didn't want to, but I told him I'd set him free unless he did as I asked."

Remus blinks. "I didn't know they could do that."

"House-elves have powerful natural magic; I don't think anyone knows everything they're truly capable of. They do a lot on instinct," Sirius says offhandedly. "It helps that I do most everything for myself though, I think."

"Wait. Why do I see your real face, then?"

Sirius shrugs. "You didn't recognize me from my face, though, did you? I mean, you were expecting to see my real face. Maybe that's why."

Remus picks up his now-frozen tea to think behind it, but then he sips it, winces, sets down the tea and pushes it away. "It's late. You may as well stay here tonight. I have a spare couch."

Sirius aquiesces with no more than a wry tilt of his mouth and strolls out of the room, hands still in his pockets. Remus will know if he tries to leave, but until then he has some thinking to do. It has something to do with Sirius' story, and the holes therein; there's something wrong there that Remus can't quite put his finger on.

There's a trick to this with Sirius. He tends - tended, Remus admonishes himself - to lie in layers of truth and carefully crafted deception; it's best, Remus had found, to recreate the lie in his mind like a movie. It plays out in his head - Sirius waking, wincing, and shaking his head almost lazily; the horror in Sirius' face when he realized just what the ground was made of; a death rictus when Taranis took control.

And then he vanishes, without so much as a pop of displaced air, and so does the scenery, a prop whose only purpose was to facilitate the will of its creator...

 _There's something wrong_ , his mind whispers to him, and Remus growls at himself and says in reply, _I'm quite aware of that, thank you. Figure it out._

The narration seems to hold together, though, no matter how many times Remus hits play. Even in his own mind, Sirius is a distraction; sometimes, it's the too-large features of his face, huge, deepset eyes and cruel mouth that only rarely lapsed into sentimentality; sometimes it was the apparent frailty of muscles, or the terror poorly hidden in the tight lines and wrinkles of Sirius' face. Remus wonders, idly, now that Sirius is back, how he got back, and via what method.

Suddenly, with a jerk of his head, Remus realizes that it's not important how Sirius got back, but that he's back at all.

 _He requires- an agent._

Taranis can't touch him here and Sirius knows it. The entire story is a blind, meant to distract Remus from his original question (which Sirius had never answered) and all the questions that Remus would have asked after that. There's a entire spectrum of possibilities, and Remus fully intends to grill Sirius as soon as he wakes up, but for now, there are things relating to Sirius' story that he hasn't researched, and that simply cannot be allowed.

Remus swings up and out of his chair to refresh his tea. The kitchen is colder than it should be, and he's grateful to the magic that allows the pot to heat up with a tap of his wand. It's heavy and requires both hands unless he wants a strained wrist, and he puts his wand back in the sheath in his sleeve before picking it up.

He's just putting the pot back on the range when something taps his forehead, and he's out before he can register the muttered spell or the unfamiliar voice behind it.

-

The strange smells are what wake him up in the end. There's cigarette smoke and something like road tar, and underneath is the faint smell of oil and blood. Old blood, human; Remus knows that scent from their raids during the war. It's enough to clear his head, and he shakes it and tries to move a hand so he can push himself up off the floor, but he's blindfolded and restrained by thick metal at his wrists, ankles and neck. The initial shock fades to fear, then irritation.

"About time you woke up." Sirius is on his left, and he's just as irritated as Remus is. "I was beginning to get worried."

Remus starts to work on the restraints. They burn a little; there's some silver in the metal, but not much. Whoever has them almost certainly knows what he is, so they'd have taken other precautions. On the other hand, the restraints are starting to irritate his skin, and it's better than doing nothing. "This is your fault, isn't it?" he says drily. "This is the reason you gave me the runaround last night."

"Well, yes," Sirius says and shifts, metal clanking. "They must have been watching you." His voice is carefully accusatory, as if it's Remus' fault, and Remus aches to hit him, but it's going to have to wait. He can feel the cuffs giving a little, and this is no time to let Sirius distract him. "Did you completely let your guard down straight after the war, or did you wait a few weeks?"

Or maybe it's the perfect time.

"This from the man who was content to live like a rat in the shadows for the rest of his life?" Remus holds his breath. It's either a killing blow or a mile wide of the mark, depending on how much of the old Sirius lives inside the new. Despite everything, though, he keeps flexing against the cuffs. He has a decent idea of who has them, and this is the last place he wants to be. Of course, It's really just something to do; Remus half expects Harry to dash in at any second. The lad has a sixth sense for last minute rescues.

"That's a low blow, even for you."

There's obviously more still there than Remus previously realized. This is something to think on- later.

"What exactly do you mean, 'even for me'?" Remus' heart isn't in it, though, and he wonders just how long he had been out. Surely their captors have realized Remus has woken up, and that means that there's only a limited amount of time before someone comes to make life even more interesting.

"They're watching us," Sirius murmurs, as if reading his mind. "They'll be in shortly, as soon as we've been properly intimidated." There's more than guesswork in his voice, and Remus sighs.

"They've had you before, haven't they?" The silence is assent enough. "You should have come to us, Sirius. We could have done something."

Sirius pulls at his chains in exasperation. "Yes, you could all have died. That would have suited your martyr complex, wouldn't it?"

That one stings, and Remus forgets about it as soon as he opens his mouth, because the cuffs suddenly snap and his hands are free. "Shoddy craftsmanship," he mutters as he undoes the blindfold and the catch at his neck and bends to the restraints at his ankles.

"You're used to a better class of prison, is that it? Come on, Moony, hurry up," Sirius says as he shifts closer. "There's not much time." Remus is loath to ask what they can do without their wands, but hurries nonetheless. He can't tell much more about the place they're being held without the blindfold than with; the darkness is pervasive. Even so, he can tell someone is watching them.

"Do you feel that?" Remus asks quietly.

"They've got someone keeping an eye on us," Sirius confirms. "We have to get out of here. Now."

Remus knows. "You're nearly done," he murmurs. They'd taken more care with Sirius' restraints; they're tighter, with less room to work. Nevertheless, Remus soon breaks them and they flatten against the wall, inching towards a shadow that might be the door; it's difficult to tell in the darkness.

It is the door, though, as they find out when it swings open just as they reach it. Remus grabs the person by the throat and throws them up against the wall. Their glasses clatter to the floor and Remus grins, relishing the feeling, baring teeth, then blinks. _Glasses_?

He feels the person's face with his other hand and yes, there's the scar. " _Harry_?" Harry paws at his wrist, and Remus remembers suddenly and lets Harry drop. "Sorry."

"Don't mention it," Harry says darkly, a little hoarse. "Here- your wands. Can we get out of here now, or did you plan on staying for tea?"

"By all means," Sirius says, almost lazily. "I have a feeling we were on the menu. Entirely beside the point, we can't have Remus associating with these sorts of people. They might give him ideas."

Harry, glasses recovered, glances sharply at Sirius, shakes his head and cracks the door open. "I knocked out the guards, so we should have a clear run. Sorry, no Apparating, we're in the old Rumsfield townhouse. Shall we, then?" Sirius and Remus fall in at his back as Harry slips out the door, old wartime habits dictating their actions now. It's almost frightening how Remus' muscles remember on their own what to do, how to move. Frightening, but useful.

They make their way up the stairs out of the basement and sneak past a lighted room, the door only partially closed, allowing the sounds of laughter and clinking silver to echo through the hall, and are out the front door without anyone crying alarm. Remus breathes a soft sigh as he feels the anti-Apparation wards fall away and the three raise their wands, almost in unison.

"Grimmauld Place," Harry says to Remus. It's not a question, almost but not quite a command, and Harry cracks out of existence before Remus can suggest otherwise.

When Remus looks at Sirius, he catches Sirius eyeing the spot where Harry had stood a moment earlier. Sirius looks up and meets Remus' eyes; his mouth twitches in what might almost be a smile. "I didn't realize how much he'd changed."

"We all changed," Remus says simply. "Some of us changed together."

He waits for Sirius to Apparate away before he does the same, and the laughter in the house behind him fades as if it had never been.

-

Remus has been trying to get Harry out of Grimmauld Place for the last year; he's never thought it healthy to keep the memories at such close hand. Harry needs healing as much as the rest of them do, if not more. This is also the last place he wants to bring Sirius right now, but there's not really another option; his apartment's not safe at the moment, and the authorities are out of the question, at least until they can get Sirius' name officially cleared.

It's only when Harry turns on Sirius and says almost viciously, "And who, exactly, are you?" that Remus realizes that someone Harry doesn't recognize shouldn't have been able to directly Apparate to 12 Grimmauld Place.

There's no reason to keep it a secret now, but still Sirius hesitates, and Remus breaks in, if only to keep the status quo for a precious few minutes. "He's an old friend of mine, and I need to talk to him. You can interrogate him later." He takes Sirius' arm and steers him up the staircase as Harry watches them go; Sirius follows unresistingly, and it's so unlike both the old and the new Sirius that Remus glances back to make sure he's not missing something.

"This place is not what I remember," Sirius muses softly, and Remus almost smiles.

He tugs again to keep them moving toward the second floor. "This is still Order headquarters," he reminds Sirius. "Nobody really liked the Black interior design, and Harry owns the place now, so he had it cleaned out." He gets a distracted grin, and in an attempt to lighten Sirius' mood Remus adds, "We found some of your stashes, by the way. You never told us you smoked marijuana."

"Only here," Sirius mutters, and Remus could kick himself. He could almost see the memories on Sirius' face. "I almost had to be high to deal with _them_." A smile ghosts across Sirius' face, subtly loosening the taut muscles in his jaw. "That they were Muggle drugs only made it better."

They're up on the second floor now, and Remus lets go of Sirius' arm to open the nearest door. It's deserted. "In here," he decides, locking the door behind them. This is the room that's been converted into the Order library; nobody can get into the Black library, and eventually it had been boarded up.

Sirius wanders restlessly through the room, letting his fingers almost touch the bookshelves and chairs before drawing them back. He's just like a cat, Remus thinks, trying to get comfortable in a new environment.

"Are you going to tell him?" Remus' quiet question brings Sirius' head snapping around, but there's no surprise in his eyes. "It seems to me," Remus continues, watching Sirius closely, "That there's no point in keeping it secret anymore. They were the people you were protecting us from, weren't they?"

Sirius nods, still wandering. "They've been after me since Voldemort died. I've been... making life difficult for them." He turns and grins at Remus, and it's pure Sirius, mischief and malice and he can somehow make Remus feel like it's a joke they share.

It's not a joke, though. "You've been hunting them?" Sirius nods, and Remus snorts. He should have expected something like this. "Sirius. Vigilantism isn't going to solve anything."

"I don't care, do I? It makes life safer for all of us," Sirius says reasonably, drifting closer to Remus.

There aren't that many possibilities, not anymore. "You've been killing the stray Death Eaters to protect Harry and I?" Remus is so incredulous that he knows it's in his voice, but he can't imagine anything that could sound more ridiculous- or more like Sirius.

Sirius makes a face and turns away to start another circuit of the room. "It was for you, really."

Remus almost can't hear him, but almost doesn't count. He reaches out and pulls Sirius back to him. "What?" He can't have meant what he thinks Sirius meant. He just- he can't have.

Remus gets a quizzical look in return. "You don't think I'd let anything happen to you, do you?" _Of course not_ , Remus thinks, almost disappointed. He lets Sirius go and smiles brightly, but Sirius isn't backing away. On the contrary, he's stepping foward, crowding Remus against the wall at his back; his face has softened, and Remus can almost pretend, in this instant, that the last nineteen years had never happened. This is Sirius as he should have been, with no mark of the Dementors or his years in exile on his face, and the regret hits Remus like a fist in the gut. He closes his eyes against the burn of tears.

"Moony," Sirius whispers. "Remus. Did you really not know?" Remus' eyes fly open just in time to watch Sirius press their lips together. He keeps his eyes open in case this all disappears while he's not watching, but nothing on earth or off it could keep Remus from kissing back.

Sirius keeps his eyes closed and his mouth is gentle, as if he's expecting to be rejected violently, but when Remus begins to kiss him back he crushes Remus against the wall and his tongue is working its way between Remus' lips and when Remus brings his hands up to Sirius' jaw, he can feel the muscles in Sirius' neck working. It's like he's being devoured, inch by inch, and Remus can't begin to bring himself to care. He can feel the hard length of Sirius' cock against his hip, and it's the easiest thing in the world to align their pelvises and press up, _there_ -

Remus knows he's got it right when Sirius groans and swears into his mouth, in the rough voice he's still getting used to; the wave of heat slowly liquifying his muscles isn't leaving him any room for thinking, though. He's a bundle of instinct, and what he wants, what he's wanted for years, is right in front of him-

He takes Sirius' hips and grinds them into his own, then spins them around and slams Sirius' back against the wall. He's sure he hears Sirius' head crack on the panelling, but he soothes that with another kiss, wrapping his tongue around Sirius', and all he can think is _Trousers. Off. Now._ Sirius has had the same thought; he's fumbling with Remus' belt, and incidentally brushing Remus' cock with the back of his hand, sending tingling shocks up Remus' spine, and if Sirius doesn't get their trousers off in the next five seconds he's ripping them off. He has to move his hands to let Sirius' trousers fall, and he sends them up to brush Sirius' nipples, which prompts another moan, and he's starting to get the idea that it's been just as long for Sirius as it has been for him; the thought makes him smile and he does his absolute best to crawl inside Sirius' mouth.

Finally, _finally_ Sirius gets Remus' trousers undone, and he grips Sirius' hips and at the first slide of their cocks his breath abandons him. It's so _good_ and it's been so long, and as they grind against each other, he thinks, _this is Sirius_ \- and that's enough to send him suddenly and unexpectedly straight over the edge. Remus slows, panting, and Sirius whines like Padfoot, rubbing himself against Remus, and as Remus begins to wake up he smiles and works a hand between them. It only takes a few strokes to get him off, and he's shuddering and gasping in Remus' arms.

Reality reasserts itself.

What was he _doing_?

He steps back and concentrates on reassembling himself, hands fumbling on his belt buckle, and he doesn't dare look up at Sirius. He doesn't want to know, he doesn't want to see. It would be so easy to pretend this never happened.

He can't lose Sirius again.

When Remus tries to speak, his voice cracks as if he's a teenager again. "We should- Harry's waiting." He turns to the door and starts to open it, and Sirius' hand slams it shut.

"Harry," Sirius agrees. "But don't think you're getting away from me now. I've been waiting too long for that." He nuzzles behind Remus' ear for a moment, then opens the door and pushes Remus out. Remus shakes his head and laughs. _You should have known,_ he tells himself. _Expect the unexpected._


End file.
